The world political situation is... I'm trying to think of a better term than "Up shit creek" but am sort of drawing a blank there. I don't even know where to start so I won't.

Pepsi looked like a sure fire winner of the "Worst PR Campaign of the Week" award with their astoundingly inappropriate advert with it's implied message of "Pepsi can stop police brutality" (Coke just wanted to teach the world to sing), but props to United Airlines for snatching that prize at the last minute with a breathtakingly ghastly treatment of a passenger on an overbooked plane (involving actual violence), when they had UA staff they wanted to be given the seats instead. You can find that one on your newsfeeds if you wish because I'm not going to link to it.

Scrabbling to find something positive, we DO have new Doctor Who to look forward to on Saturday, and in this messed up world, it's worth nothing Peter Capaldi's recent summation of the show when asked his opinion of cyber bullying. (Prompted by a question from a young fan who has experience with it)

"The essence of Doctor Who is kindness, that is what really is underneath all of this.

This is a person who moves through time and space and history, and all kinds of situations, and reacts to them, ultimately – despite the way the different versions of him may appear – he reacts with kindness.

And that is how everyone involved with Doctor Who should be and how everyone who is a fan of it should be.

If they’re not kind, they’re not receiving the show in the proper way and they’re not really a fan of it."

The show has been REALLY lucky with the actors it casts in the role, and Mr Capaldi is no exception.

Slightly on topic, but Jay Edidin of the ever entertaining X-Plain the X-Men podcast, gave a talk recently about mutant metaphor and representation which you may find interesting (I know I did). It's a Facebook video, which I know some people are a little iffy about, so I won't embed it

https://www.facebook.com/BooksWithPicturesPDX/videos/450383108635852/

Oh, and since this weekend is Easter, and Passover is underway, best wishes to those who celebrate either of these and, if you don't, enjoy the weekend anyway. Me? I can finally eat chocolate again as Lent will be over. The fact I have a dental checkup booked for the end of next week is just one of those ironic coincidences, but it will encourage me not to binge TOO much.

The photo that was captured is absolutely perfect. One of the EDL's nasty little lot being confronted by a smiling young woman of colour, a passing local (as opposed to the EDL who arrived by bus from who knows where), who stepped in to protect a woman in hijab that the EDL had surrounded and were menacing. It's a near perfect dichotomy of an image, it highlights, as nothing else, everything that is wrong with the EDL worldview and everything that is optimistic for the future.

The lady's name is Saffiyah Khan and my admiration for her is boundless. The man has a name too, but I'm not going to mention it here.

Oh, and Birmginham's Central Mosque's reaction to the rally? They organised an open-to-all "Best of British" tea-party with Union Jack bunting, tea and cakes,

Kadyrov reminds me of Iran president Ahmadinejad: "We don't have any gays in Iran".Considering that in many countries, especially the ones where religion has an important political power, homosexuality is an offense punishable by death, I'm disgusted, but not surprised.

I'm not used to audiobooks, but I'm totally smitten by Neil Gaiman's own narration of his Norse Mythology. Admittedly, this might have something to do with me recently moving to Germany, and listening to his husky voice while walking these impossibly beautiful oak woods under the magnificent sunset sky, hearing countless rustling animals just hiding from view, feeling as if I'm about to be kidnapped by elves at any moment—but anyway, Gaiman is a pretty great storyteller, not just story-maker.

You can listen to the book for free on your favoured device with a free Audible trial month.

This week has been one of those weeks whose mere existence has been so bad that it has left me with no energy left to say anything but this week has been a shitty week. It has been an exhausting week merely living in it.

I'm trying to find some good news that I can give out to ameliorate it.

There is a robin building a nest in the ivy on my back wall. It is cute watching it.

So, John Simm is returning to Doctor Who.I remain intrigued, yet guarded, as one of those who doesn't have anything against Simm's portrayal.(Additional obligatory "joke" about current British politics.)

Apparently some of The Last Knight's toys are showing up on shelves.Would probably care a bit more if there were any interesting ones, not just Yet Another Bumblebee.Also Slash.(Happy as I am to have Dinobots in a movie, most of the toys were pretty ehhhh. Except Scorn. Love Scorn. Scorn's brilliant.)Heck, if they'd gone with one of the dragons in the first wave, that'd be something. Even a boring ol' dragon's better than yet more Bumblebees.

Though at this point the movie sounds like it's going to be some variety of garbled mess.

Due to my financial situation, it appears I will be unable to attend Minicon (the local SF convention held Easter weekend) for the first time in thirty years. Even if I get a sudden influx of money, I will need to save it for bills.

Let's see... from following icon on Tumblr, I recently got into and binge-watched the entire first (and so far only) season of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir. Wonderful Magical Girl show with gorgeous CGI. The female lead has been described as a mixture of Spider-Man and Amélie Poulain from Amélie.

I'm also looking for suggestions on good tpb to pick up. I"ve been thinking about the last 2-3 Fables trades as I dropped off reading a couple of years before it ended. Also thinking of Scott Snyder's Batman run. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

At first, I was very happy about it. Ok, yeah, the “joke” at the very beginning sucked, it was Bay-levels bad. But then it quickly picked up.

I was especially happy with Billy. An autistic character in a blockbuster movie who is a)a protagonist, b)funny, c)never pitied or used for inspiration porn, d)massively contributes to the squad. As in, actually contributes, not by ~ inspiring ~ others to get the job done but by taking the initiative to do the job himself.

The other characters were unfortunately not that deep, they were more like archetypes. However, they were likeable archetypes. The beats felt right, the interactions were entertaining, the action scenes were fun (I especially loved the training montage, I was grinning through it all).

There were several things that annoyed me (the “I don’t like labels” cop out. The fact that, in a group of 4 poc and one white guy, everybody immediately assumes that the white guy automatically MUST be the leader). But still, it was nice to see a blockbuster movie where 4 of the 5 protagonists are poc, one is authistic, and one is... a lesbian? A bisexual? She is not straight anyway.

The monster mooks were somehow convincing, and Alpha was entertaining rather than irritating. I even may have let out a little squee when I saw the dino robots.

Overall, I was really happy with it.

And then they reveal that Kimberly is a sexual abuser. That the “bully” who “mistreated” her at the beginning of the movie was actually her victim of revenge porn, and that having Kimberly kicked out of the cheerleaders was actually an incredibly tame reprisal for distributing child porn and beating up the guy who called her out on it. Further, the movie informs us that just because Kimberly backstabbed her friend in a horrific way, that doesn’t mean she is a bad person, as Kimberly has learned from her mistakes: she now knows that sharing nude pictures of people without their consent is wrong, which is why she shares the nude picture again to Jason and refuses to delete it. Further further, the “bully” is a total bitch for holding a grudge against Kimberly (who is still sharing her nude picture with strangers), and deserves to be punished. At the end of the movie, the “bully’s” car gets wrecked, and the “bully” herself almost gets injured, and Kimberly happily chirps “that’s what you get!”

WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCKING FUCK EVER OH MY GOD ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS *WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!?!*

Adding insult to injury, I’ve seen a review that damn nearly praised the whole thing, saying “kids will surely relate to that!”

Oh, sure, in a way, I can see that. It’s so damn common for victims of leaked nudes to be victum blamed and demonized for it while the culprit is excused and coddled, I have no doubts plenty of people will relate to that.

Most reviews called it “unnecessary” but didn’t otherwise seem to have a problem with it. And on tumblr, a bunch of popular posts now bash the “bully” and use her as the villain in Kimberly fics.

For fuck’s sake. Even the ~woke~ movie with poc and autistic and queer characters will gleefully slut shame girls who were victims of sexual abuse.

So last weekend is the annual spring sale at the county library. On Thursday the Friends of the Library could get first pick. My mother’s a member, so she went that day.

She got herself a few cookbooks and mystery paperbacks. She also got me a box of books. What kind of books? Comic trade paperbacks! Mostly Batman and Superman, some Daredevil and GL (Kyle) and Iron Man and Robin and Thor and Teen Titans, the first Invincible trade, and some Marvel Essential collections. 32 trades in total, and at half a buck a pop, she got them all for about the price of one TPB!

In an even better bit of news, I'm no longer completely unemployed! I've been working as a substitute teacher at a local charter school (6th-12th grade) for the past few weeks, and am really enjoying it. Some of the kids seem to like me, too!

Yeah, I'm nervous about what might come next. The cynic in me wonders if Trump and his little minions are getting all gungho with the military in Syria and near the Korean peninsula to try and get attention away from all the Russia sketchy stuff in the news about his administration.

I finished Mass Effect 3 for the first time, today. I'm still processing how I felt about the game, but by gosh was that experience emotionally exhausting for me. Hopefully, I'll be able to get the DLC if there's ever a sale or if I save enough money. What do people here think about the Mass Effect series?

So some Republicans in my state (NC) -- antsy over the fake HB 2 repeal -- decided to toss out the whole "Separation of Church and State" thing and introduced a bill that would ban same sex marriage, saying the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision "exceeds the authority of the court relative to the decree of Almighty God that 'a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh' (Genesis 2:24, ESV) and abrogates the clear meaning and understanding of marriage in all societies throughout prior history."

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